Home audio & video: Movies and their extreme audio range
Movies and their extreme audio range
by BlackPenguin - 3/14/09 6:52 PMFirst let me say, I'm not 90 years old. I'm only 34 and I have friends who are 25 who say the same as what I'm about to put here. The audio tracks on movies have become insane, in terms of this: In order to hear what a person is saying you have to turn the volume way up. Then when there is an explosion or someone yelling .. the walls rattle. 
I love movies, but this is making me want to give them up. I understand that there needs to be some range between the soft and the loud. But things have gotten out of hand. I now only go to one movie a year (at the theater). I can't justify 8+ dollars for a ticket when I won't enjoy it. When I rent a movie I'm constantly going volume up to hear what they are saying and then volume back down during the action scenes. I know there is no way to get Hollywood to fix this. But is there a receiver for a home theater system that will more or less fix this? I would like to set the maximum volume and the minimum volume. And that is the MAXIMUM and the MINIMUM volume that will come out of the speakers. And it doesn't matter what is on the cd/dvd/blu-ray.. well obviously if there is no one speaking .. obviously there should be no sound.. but you get the idea. Does this tech exist. and if so.. where? As I mentioned earlier I need a receiver to do this. Because I have tower speakers, the dvd player, and all of the other equipment.
Thanks
Andrew
sorta
by givemeaname - 3/14/09 11:00 PM In reply to: Movies and their extreme audio range by BlackPenguinOn my yamaha recievers I can adjust the power to each speaker.
I know what your talking about on movies. I have my center channel set at about 20% more power then the other speakers and mostly it fixed that issue. Every once in a while it is hard to hear people talk over the other sounds, mostly on old DVDs or ones with very high compression audio.
Try going into the manule audio sent up of your reciever, find the speaker setup area & hopefully yours will have the same thing as mine, look for speaker test or something simaler & push the power on the center speaker.
ok.
by jostenmeat - 3/15/09 1:14 PM In reply to: Movies and their extreme audio range by BlackPenguinYou are going to want to try a receiver with:
Audyssey MultEQ XT (or vanilla multEQ)
Audyssey Dynamic Volume
Auyssey Dynamic EQ
You can also go into every single device, and set DRC or "late night" etc to maximum, including dvd player, stb, receiver.
Most movies you watch at home are actually using the mixes designed for the theater. And, well, you guessed it, they mix with high volumes in mind.
While the Audyssey techs are formidable, they can only do so much for poor speaker design, poor speaker placement, poor listener placement. If speaker is horiz mtm, you don't want to be off axis to it. If it's shoved in a cabinet, you might rethink placement so that the resonances, diffractions, and reflections aren't ruining the center speaker audio too much. If too close to the floor, you might consider getting it higher so that the midbass boosts aren't masking the dialogue so much. If your head is against the back wall, you might consider putting the couch feet on sliders, so that reflection doesn't arrive so fast as to create smearing.
but, for the receiver, I will only recommend Audyssey enabled products, and those are made by Denon, Onkyo, NAD, and Marantz.
hope this helps
I guess you can blame film makers love of special effects
by NM_Bill - 3/16/09 8:50 PM In reply to: Movies and their extreme audio range by BlackPenguinto add impact (literally.) In fact they literally want nearly instantaneous SLAM.
As an old, small time audiophile, I savor a very well reproduced wide range between minimum & maximum. The finer the quality of the audio setup enhances enjoyment of softer softs & louder louds.
As far as significant annoyance between stations & of the low volume of program material marked by the jarring loud burst beginning commercials goes, although there have sometimes been features offered to equalize volume, it is necessary to keep our remote control handy because the mute feature is definitely our friend.
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